The Hidden City

Many of the MGM Tarzan films were exceptionally good and well made. Wanting to cash in on the studio's success, many lesser production companies also made similar films, though with a fraction of the budget or attention to details. Most of these Tarzan and Tarzan-like films from other studios stink when you see them today. Too often, the films are filled with poorly integrated stock footage and silly acting...though Monogram Studio's "Bomba and the Hidden City" is a bit of an exception. It lacks the usual cheep stock footage and is a bit more plot-driven than usual.

In "Bomba and the Hidden City", some white explorer has heard reports of a white boy living in the wild. He's interested in finding Bomba...and asks the absolutely worst person to assist him, the local Emir (Paul Guilfoyle). Why? Because the man is scum...and he has a secret that Bomba knows. But what is the secret? And, how does it fit in with a headstrong young lady he's just met?

As I mentioned above, the film is NOT filled with awful stock footage...a problem in most low-budget Tarzan-style films. It does feature some American Alligators near the end, which is odd for Africa...but so are all the Arabs living in a jungle! You just have to not ask yourself quesitons about such things, though it's REALLY hard to understand how the young lady cannot recall her parents nor the Emir's actions considering the photo of her with her folks that you see near the end. It appears that the incident must have occurred a year or two previously...so how could the young lady have zero memory of them? She doesn't seem to be suffering from a head injury and I think it's just a plot hole. Still, despite several reasonable gripes due to the writing, it is better than the average Bomba film and is harmless fun.

Though only 19 when this was made, I think that Johnny Sheffield was now becoming just a bit too old to carry off this most preposterous of "Bomba" tales. When he is spotted by a photographer swinging through the trees, the local Emir decides to have him killed as, basically, glorified vermin. Ever indestructible, our young lad is rescued, downriver, by the original Princess Leah (OK, slight spelling variation) whom it turns out is the daughter of the rightful Emir who had been unceremoniously overthrown. Needless to say, our chivalrous loincloth-clad Sheffield is up for helping her to reclaim her inheritance. As with the Weissmuller "Tarzan" films, this series has begun to run out of steam. The charm and innocence of earlier iterations have gone; the storylines have become angrier, and the underlying simplicity long since compromised by invasive weaponry and technology (even by 1950s standards). The writing isn't up to much here, either - and there is an annoying romantic sub-plot that bogs it down rather. They are still watchable little features, all of them, but this one - less so.

THE HIDDEN CITY, a/k/a BOMBA AND THE HIDDEN CITY (Monogram, 1950), directed by Ford Beebe, marks the fourth installment to the "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" movie series starring Johnny Sheffield. In one of the better entries in the series, with screenplay by Carroll Young, this edition promises more fast-pace adventure, especially after Bomba finds himself being hunted by someone unknown to him.

Following some jungle camera tracking along wildlife doing their daily routine, the story begins in a jeep where Hadji (Smoki Whitfield), a tour guide, drives museum photographer, Dennis Johnson (Damian O'Flynn), through the jungle as he uses his movie camera to capture images of animal life. Along the way, Johnson notices a white boy vine swinging from tree to tree. Wanting to take further pictures of the legend of Bomba (Johnny Sheffield), the jungle boy soon disappears from a distance. Later, while in what is described as The Hidden City, the story develops with the introduction of Emir Hassen (Paul Guilfoyle), a corrupt leader of the city who had earlier replaced a good governor who was killed, with Emir next in line to take his place. Hoping to improve his life of poor living, Raschid (Leon Belasco), from the neighboring village of Kampini, offers to sell his foster daughter, Zita (Sue England) as part of Emir's household harem girls. Learning about the jungle boy from Johnson, Emir arranges for Abdullah (Charles La Torre) to hunt Bomba and have him killed. Later injured from a knife thrown to his back, Bomba escapes Abdullah and is later found and rescued by Zita, who treats his knife wound. When Bomba notices one of the visitors of Zita's village to be one of the men who knifed him, he escapes into the jungle. As for Zita, who, after meeting the fearful Emir only to learn she is to go with him to become one of his maidens, she, too, escapes into the jungle for Bomba's assistance. Realizing Zita, who has no recollection of her true identity, might be in as much great danger as himself, Bomba allows Zita to be taken back to the hidden city under Emir's corrupt ruling while Bomba, at the risk of being captured himself, watches for her safety from afar and learn the reason for Emir's evil doings.

Johnny Sheffield is fine as the teenage spear carrying jungle boy image taken from the character created by Rock Rockwood's "Bomba" books, while Sue England's is agreeable as Bomba's latest female characters out for his help. As with many jungle adventures such as this, there is a villain, here played by Paul Guilfoyle, who gets the most attention here, with Damian O'Flynn as the good guy out to assist Bomba from his dangerous captures. Smoki Whitfield, who earlier played Eli in the first two "Bomba" installments, assumes a different character name here as Hadji,

Not as well known as the "Tarzan" series of years past, by which Sheffield also participated opposite Johnny Weissmuller through much of the 1940s, THE HIDDEN CITY is a worthy offering in the Bomba series, especially for the Saturday matinee crowd. No known video tape distributions but availability on DVD and cable television exposure over the years, including Turner Network Television (1992), and Turner Classic Movies since 2011. Next installment: THE LION HUNTERS (1951) (**)

Bomba has to help the beautiful Sue England (who has kind of a cute Bettie Page bangs thing going on), who is the rightful heir to the throne, but is instead forced to marry the dastardly Hassan who seeks to steal the kingdom. Silly, low budget, and completely unoriginal, but I will say I enjoyed this one slightly more than the other Bomba films I've seen.

Bomba and the Hidden City (1950)

** (out of 4)

Extremely far-fetched but entertaining entry in the Monogram series has Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) witnessing a political assassination and years later the evil ruler (Paul Gulpoyle) plans on marrying a woman (Sue England) against her wishes. It's up to Bomba to try and save the girl as well as help her remember her past. This fourth film in the series is pretty camp and there's no question that it's over-the-top but I found it to be slightly entertaining simply because of all the craziness going at. At just 71-minutes the film doesn't last too long, which is always a good thing but it also manages to be rather fast paced, which was a first for the series. Director Ford Beebe actually keeps the film moving very well and we even get some decent action scenes from start to finish. This includes Bomba taking quite a bit of abuse as he tries to flee from the bad guys who are constantly shooting and throwing knives at him. The entire mystery of who the girl isn't all that hard to figure out and I'm sure the 3-year-old kids in the theater at the time figured out who she was long before it's revealed. Sheffield once again does a good job in his role of Bomba as he certainly fit the part and has no trouble playing it. England is fairly entertaining as the girl but this film clearly belongs to Gulpoyle as the crazy one. The actor really gives it his all and you can just see the glee in his eyes from getting to play a bad guy. With all of that said, this is still a low-budget Bomba movie so the various negative things are still present.